Sadly Colchester Zoo’s UmPhafa Reserve has recently been involved in fighting a fire which had broken out on the top of the mountains in the area. It took over 4 days for the fire to be extinguished with the amazing staff at the reserve having to compete with strong winds, which not only helped the fire to spread over the land very quickly, but also made it extremely difficult to get the flames under control. Thanks to the teams amazing effort all the animals on the reserve have so far been accounted for but it is unknown what other low-lying reptiles and burrowing animals, not monitored by our staff, may have been affected.

Although the team were able to prevent any animal causalities, a vast amount of good grazing land has now been destroyed, but staff will not be defeated and have been busy looking into other ways to feed the wildlife and have already begun the process of bringing in feed to make sure that the animals remain healthy and strong. 

Unfortunately incidents such as this are not uncommon in Africa and fire outbreaks happen quite often however this is on a much larger scale than usual and has devastated large parts of the reserve.

Find out more about how you can support the reserve through adoptions and donations here.